Chapter 397 This is an imported product
Under the moonlight, three somewhat familiar-looking things lay in the soil, causing Shu Yu's eyes to light up with delight.
Da Niu hadn't seen it yet, and said with some curiosity, "I wonder what they dug up. It's a pity that the place where I was hiding was too far away, so I couldn't see clearly."
She paused, then continued, "No wonder they insisted on severing ties with Fourth Uncle and taking back this courtyard; it turns out it's for the treasure hidden inside. So, this..."
Before Da Niu could finish speaking, Shu Yu squatted down and picked up a small, dark object from the ground.
"What is this?" How did Ayu manage to see something so dark and so small? He had his eyes wide open, but he still couldn't see it.
Shu Yu picked up all three seeds, placed them in her palm, and said with a smile, "These are sunflower seeds."
"Sunflower seeds?" Da Niu frowned. "Sunflower seeds don't look like this."
Shu Yu shook her head. "These are sunflower seeds, different from the ones you've seen to eat before."
The seeds mentioned in this era were actually watermelon seeds and pumpkin seeds; sunflower seeds had not yet appeared in the Great Su Dynasty.
The sunflower seeds in her hand now are clearly imported.
For the people of the Great Su Dynasty, imported goods were truly treasures.
“These sunflower seeds are a good thing.” Shu Yu recalled that records from the late Qing Dynasty described sunflower seeds as ‘worth thirty or forty coins per pound, and the seeds can be pressed for oil.’
Thirty or forty coins, that's three or four taels of silver.
Each pound weighs three or four ounces, and the melon seeds are quite heavy. If you plant a lot of them, you could earn hundreds or even thousands of ounces a day, which would be a disservice to this imported product.
Furthermore, sunflowers can be used to fertilize fields, and their stems, when burned to ash, can be boiled down with water to make alkali, which can then be used to make soap.
Sunflowers can also be pressed for oil. One acre can yield about fifty bushels of seeds, and each bushel can be used to extract one liter of oil.
If we plant a lot of sunflowers, they can become a scenic spot, just like the peach blossom grove in the county town.
No, I can't think about it anymore, or I won't be able to control my restless fingers.
Shu Yu shook her head, exhaled, and lowered her voice to say to Da Niu, "This stuff can be grown. I'll try planting it later. Didn't Boss Yuan say he didn't recognize it? It's okay, I do. When he takes it to the county town to sell, we'll find someone to buy it."
Da Niu's eyes widened. "This really is a treasure?"
"Well, we probably don't know many people here." No, it should be said that we probably don't know many people in the entire Great Su Dynasty.
Da Niu grinned; his son, A Yu, was truly knowledgeable and worldly-wise.
Shu Yu carefully put away the three sunflower seeds. "Alright, now that we know what's going on in this yard, let's go."
"Um."
The two men slightly concealed the footprints next to the soil they had dug out, then climbed over the wall and left the Yuan family's courtyard, quickly returning to Shangshi Village.
They were lucky; just as they reached the village entrance, a few drops of rain began to fall from above.
Seeing the rain, Shu Yu breathed a sigh of relief. "This rain came just in time; it washed away our footprints."
Although they tried to cover it up before leaving, it was really inconvenient to do things in the middle of the night. Who knew if the eldest son of the Yuan family and his group would notice anything amiss when they went over tomorrow?
As the rain intensified, Shu Yu quickened her pace and began to run.
"Brother Da Niu, I'll head back now. You should go home too. We can talk about it after dawn."
(End of this chapter)
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